This specification relates to computer data access management.
The digital age has made the creation and distribution of electronic information a part of daily life for many people. Users can create data repositories, electronic documents, digital multimedia files, or other forms of data and share them with other users. In some situations, users who share such data use access control features to limit or otherwise control access to the data by other users.
Users may control access to their data by specifying approved users, user accounts and/or passwords. For example, a user that has an account in a photograph management site for managing photographs on-line can specify particular users that can access the user's on-line photographs, or particular user accounts, and can further specify passwords that users must input before access can be granted. Such methods can provide the desired access control, but can also involve administration for adding and deleting user accounts, maintaining passwords, editing permissions, and other such administrative tasks. These tasks can become multiplied when the administering user wishes to independently control access to a number of files by a number of accessing users.